Thanks Crysti for sharing this photo from our flight together!
Paragliding:
a visual journey
Follow along with us as adventurers take to the skies for the first time on a tandem, learn valuable paragliding skills or even catch a glimpse of pilots just goofing around!
Who wants to come paragliding? This past weekend, Crysti and her dog Jane were the latest to try flying for the first time. It was a first for me too - first time taking 2 passengers at once, and first time taking a dog! Little Janie loved sitting up front in her "harness" (Crysti had her clipped in snug inside the front mount backpack) - the next day when Crysti said "do you want to go flying?" Jane's ears perked up and she looked as if to say "Oh, please can we go again?". Of course Crysti loved it to and will be coming for another flight soon.
Thanks Crysti for sharing this photo from our flight together!
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Fall is in the air...we can feel it in the cooler temperatures and the random rain days. As the season winds down we are still able to fly most days over the weekend, with bright sunny days mixed in with the days that clouds obscure our mountains. Diane managed to snag one of those beautiful days when she came to soar Mount Woodside and even got to take control of our aircraft!
A couple of weeks ago I got to hang out with a super fun group and take two very excited bloggers for tandems. Lucky for me, they brought along a professional photographer (www.yingerdesign.com) who happily shared his pictures of that day that looked like THIS! Wow! The cherry on top was this article written by that tiny and giggling lady running her heart out behind me in this photo. I will definitely be sharing more pictures from their weekend of adventures!
Yikes! It's been too long since I've posted...must mean we've been having too much fun! I got to take my old co-worker Kathryn tandem this last weekend on her birthday, we lucked out as the weather got squirrely afterwards and we postponed the next mystery passenger's flight. Here's a little video showing how easy it is to take the controls and how soft landing can be: You know it's been great paragliding weather when your house is a mess and your website hasn't been updated in forever (oops)! Coming up over the next few posts...pix from some tandems this past weekend and maybe even glimpses from some solo flights.
First up - my neighbor finally had enough of just watching me walk back & forth to my FJ lugging my gear around. He gathered up an entourage (we had 3 carloads drive up to launch!) had a great flight and even supplied champagne at the landing field. Glad to help check this one off Andrew's bucket list! Last weekend we had our instructor recertification course, so I went as a tandem passenger for the first time in a long time with my friend and fellow tandem pilot Andrew. It was a great learning experience as I "re-learned" how it felt and can better empathize with my passengers. Also, I learned that it's important to stick out your tongue to have a flawless launch ;)
The last 2 weekends have been filled with tandems, and with this nice weather May is booking up quickly too!
What happens on a tandem? It's up to each passenger - some ask lots of questions and it's quiet enough up there for us to chat. I talk with my hands a lot...it's no different when flying apparently! Inspired by a woman who will be coming tandem with me this year, I finally sat down and started going through all the GoPro footage I've kept over the years of my paragliding flights. Giggling at some of the "unique" ways passengers ran off the mountain, I put together this little video. Visit the Jet Set Paragliding Vimeo and YouTube pages for more! This is a new one for me since I've never seen a tow-launched tandem before. Tyler's dad went up in Arizona for his first flight…the things your kids make you do! Not everyone wants to stay on a tandem flight for the whole time ;) A few years back I served as the "airplane" for another pilot who wanted to drop off my tandem with a D - (deployment) bag, and after releasing from my harness he flew off on a speed wing while I floated around solo on my tandem wing, coming in for the softest landing ever. |
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